I. The exception, noted in chapter 4, may be newborn killer whales. They do not appear to have the chance for sleep right after birth, as they have to make the perilous journey back to their pod from the calving fields miles away, shadowed by their mother. However, this is an assumption. It remains possible that they, like all other mammals, still consume in utero large volumes of sleep, and even REM sleep, just prior to birth. We simply do not yet know.
II. S. Cohen, R. Conduit, S. W. Lockley, S. M. Rajaratnam, and K. M. Cornish, “The relationship between sleep and behavior in autism spectrum disorder (ASD): a review,” Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 6, no. 1 (2011): 44.
III. A. W. Buckley, A. J. Rodriguez, A. Jennison, et al. “Rapid eye movement sleep percentage in children with autism compared with children with developmental delay and typical development,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 164, no. 11 (2010): 1032–37. See also S. Miano, O. Bruni, M. Elia, A. Trovato, et al., “Sleep in children with autistic spectrum disorder: a questionnaire and polysomnographic study,” Sleep Medicine 9, no. 1 (2007): 64–70.
IV. G. Vogel and M. Hagler, “Effects of neonatally administered iprindole on adult behaviors of rats,” Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 55, no. 1 (1996): 157–61.
V. Ibid.
VI. V. Havlicek, R. Childiaeva, and V. Chernick, “EEG frequency spectrum characteristics of sleep states in infants of alcoholic mothers,” Neuropädiatrie 8, no. 4 (1977): 360–73. See also S. Loffe, R. Childiaeva, and V. Chernick, “Prolonged effects of maternal alcohol ingestion on the neonatal electroencephalogram,” Pediatrics 74, no. 3 (1984): 330–35.
VII. A. Ornoy, L. Weinstein-Fudim, and Z. Ergaz. “Prenatal factors associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD),” Reproductive Toxicology 56 (2015): 155–69.
VIII. E. J. Mulder, L. P. Morssink, T. van der Schee, and G. H. Visser, “Acute maternal alcohol consumption disrupts behavioral state organization in the near-term fetus,” Pediatric Research 44, no. 5 (1998): 774–79.
IX. Beyond sleep, alcohol also inhibits the milk ejection reflex and causes a temporary decrease in milk yield.
X. J. A. Mennella and P. L. Garcia-Gomez, “Sleep disturbances after acute exposure to alcohol in mothers’ milk,” Alcohol 25, no. 3 (2001): 153–58. See also J. A. Mennella and C. J. Gerrish, “Effects of exposure to alcohol in mother’s milk on infant sleep,” Pediatrics 101, no. 5 (1998): E2.
XI. While not directly related to sleep quantity or quality, alcohol use by the mother before co-sleeping with their newborn infants (bed to couch) leads to a seven- to ninefold increase of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), compared with those who do not use alcohol. (P. S. Blair, P. Sidebotham, C. Evason-Coombe, et al., “Hazardous cosleeping environments and risk factors amenable to change: case-control study of SIDS in southwest England,” BMJ 339 [2009]: b3666.)
XII. The ability for infants and young children to become independent nighttime sleepers is the keen focus of—or perhaps better phrased, the outright obsession of—many new parents. There are innumerable books whose sole focus is to outline the best practices for infant and child sleep. This book is not meant to offer an overview of the topic. However, a key recommendation is to always put your child to bed when they are drowsy, rather than when they are asleep. In doing so, infants and children are significantly more likely to develop an independent ability to self-soothe at night, so that they can put themselves back to sleep without needing a parent present.
XIII. Even though the degree of neural network connectivity decreases during development, the physical size of our brain cells, and thus the physical size of the brain and head, increases.
XIV. With all this talk of removing synapses in the adolescent brain, I should point out that plenty of strengthening continues to occur in the adolescent (and adult) brain within those circuits that remain, and this is carried out by different sleeping brainwaves we’ll discuss in the next chapter. Suffice it to say that the ability to learn, retain, and thus remember new memories persists, even when set against the backdrop of general connectivity downscaling throughout late development. Nevertheless, by teenage years, the brain is less malleable, or plastic, than during infancy or early childhood—one example being the ease with which younger children can pick up a second language compared with older adolescents.
XV. M. G. Frank, N. P. Issa, and M. P. Stryker, “Sleep enhances plasticity in the developing visual cortex,” Neuron 30, no. 1 (2001): 275–87.
XVI. N. Olini, S. Kurth, and R. Huber, “The effects of caffeine on sleep and maturational markers in the rat,” PLOS ONE 8, no. 9 (2013): e72539.
XVII. S. Sarkar, M. Z. Katshu, S. H. Nizamie, and S. K. Praharaj, “Slow wave sleep deficits as a trait marker in patients with schizophrenia,” Schizophrenia Research 124, no. 1 (2010): 127–33.
XVIII. M. F. Profitt, S. Deurveilher, G. S. Robertson, B. Rusak, and K. Semba, “Disruptions of sleep/wake patterns in the stable tubule only polypeptide (STOP) null mouse model of schizophrenia,” Schizophrenia Bulletin 42, no. 5 (2016): 1207–15.
XIX. D. J. Foley, A. A. Monjan, S. L. Brown, E. M. Simonsick et al., “Sleep complaints among elderly persons: an epidemiologic study of three communities,” Sleep 18, no. 6 (1995): 425–32. See also D. J. Foley, A. A. Monjan, E. M. Simonstick, R. B. Wallace, and D. G. Blazer, “Incidence and remission of insomnia among elderly adults: an epidemiologic study of 6,800 persons over three years,” Sleep 22 (Suppl 2) (1999): S366–72.
XX. Tips for safe sleep in the elderly: (1) have a side lamp within reach that you can switch on easily, (2) use dim or motion-activated night-lights in the bathrooms and hallways to illuminate your path, (3) remove obstacles or rugs en route to the bathroom to prevent stumbles or trips, and (4) keep a telephone by your bed with emergency phone numbers programmed on speed dial.
XXI. A. G. Wade, I. Ford, G. Crawford, et al., “Efficacy of prolonged release melatonin in insomnia patients aged 55–80 years: quality of sleep and next-day alertness outcomes,” Current Medical Research and Opinion 23, no. 10: (2007): 2597–605.
I. “Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast,—”
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Folger Shakespeare Library (New York: Simon & Schuster; first edition, 2003).
II. The literal-minded reader should not take this analogy to suggest that I believe the human brain, or even its functions of learning and memory, operates as a computer does. There are abstract similarities, yes, but there are many clear differences, large and small. A brain cannot be said to be the equivalent of a computer, nor vice versa. It is simply that certain conceptual parallels offer useful analogies to comprehend how the biological processes of sleep operate.
III. Nicholas Hammond, Fragmentary Voices: Memory and Education at Port-Royal (Tübingen, Germany: Narr Dr. Gunter; 2004).
IV. J. G. Jenkins and K. M. Dallenbach, “Obliviscence during sleep and waking,” American Journal of Psychology 35 (1924): 605–12.
V. Such findings may offer cognitive justification for the common incidence of unintentional napping in public in Japanese culture, termed inemuri (“sleep while being present”).
VI. G. Martin-Ordas and J. Call, “Memory processing in great apes: the effect of time and sleep,” Biology Letters 7, no. 6 (2011): 829–32.
VII. This technique, called transcranial direct current brain stimulation (tDCS), should not be confused with electroconvulsive shock therapy, in which the size of electrical voltage inserted into the brain is many hundreds or thousands of times stronger (the consequences of which were so arrestingly illustrated in Jack Nicholson’s performance in the movie One Few Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).
VIII. This nighttime reactivation method only works during NREM sleep and does not work if attempted during REM sleep.
IX. You can even pay participants for each word they correctly recall to try and override what may be a simple reporting bias, and the results don’t change.
X. M. F. Bergeron, M. Mountjoy, N. Armstrong, M. Chia, et al., “International Olympic Committee consensus statement on youth athletic development,” British Journal of Sports Medicine 49, no. 13 (2015): 843–51.
XI. M. D. Milewski et al., “Chronic lack of sleep is associated with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes,” Journal of Paediatric Orthopaedics 34, no. 2 (2014): 129–33.
XII. Ken Berger, “In multibillion-dollar business of NBA, sleep is the biggest debt” (June 7, 2016), accessed at http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/in-multi-billion-dollar-business-of-nba-sleep-is-the-biggest-debt/.
XIII. K. Herron, D. Dijk, J. Ellis, J. Sanders, and A. M. Sterr, “Sleep correlates of motor recovery in chronic stroke: a pilot study using sleep diaries and actigraphy,” Journal of Sleep Research 17 (2008): 103; and C. Siengsukon and L. A. Boyd, “Sleep enhances off-line spatial and temporal motor learning after stroke,” Neurorehabilitation & Neural Repair 4, no. 23 (2009): 327–35.